


Midwest is Midwest

by Thebiwife



Category: East Is East - Ayub Khan-Din, The Good Wife (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1990s, Alternate Universe - British, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:27:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22657000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thebiwife/pseuds/Thebiwife
Summary: If Meenah Khan grew up into Kalinda Sharma.
Relationships: Alicia Florrick/Kalinda Sharma, Peter Florrick/Kalinda Sharma
Kudos: 5





	1. Kalinda - a Monday in 2010

**Author's Note:**

> takes place after s2.04 of The Good Wife, a good twenty years or so after East is East, which must've taken place in the early 90s as a result. 
> 
> Idea came from this tweet:https://twitter.com/archiepanjabi/status/1210294707714170880

Alicia stopped me in the office. “Blake keeps calling you _Leela_.”

“Ok,” i said, nonchalantly. I could tell she was hoping to get a reaction out of me, she clearly doesn’t know me _that well_ after all. Had she seen the baseball bat incident maybe she would’ve understood more. And while he might know my childhood growing up in California was fictitious, he was nowhere nearer learning the truth. Leela, I guess he could’ve misheard that. But who was feeding him any information at all?

“My name wasn’t ever _Leela_. It was _Meenah_.”

“It doesn’t matter what your name was. Why did you change it at all?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Well if you decide that I’m friend enough for you to tell me, I’ll be here all day.”

That hurt.


	2. Alicia - a Tuesday in 2010

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> once Kalinda begins to open up, Alicia tried to get more out of her.

Kalinda flinched as Blake passed her on the stairs. I had never seen Kalinda react like that to anything. With fear.

“What does Blake have on you?" I probed. I was beyond speculating, I _needed_ to know.

“Have on me? I don’t think he has anything on me.”

I gave her a look of disbelief. “Ok, I’m gonna drink.” Alicia took Kalinda by the hand and sat her at her desk, taking two beers out of the six pack beneath it.

“I didn’t like my life before, so I changed it.”

“You changed it? How did you change it?”

“In ways that Blake is trying to use against me.”

“Are you in trouble?”

“No.”

“Were you in trouble?”

Kalinda gave a denying shrug.

“It’s just when someone changes their life, it’s usually because they’re in trouble.”

“Well _you_ changed your life.”

“He tried to out me. Blake, I mean. That’s why he brought Donna to the drinks we had the other day.”

“She’s your…?”

Kalinda shrugged. “She was. And I’d rather she doesn’t know about my past.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want anyone to start prying into my past life. For my Mum’s sake if not anyone else’s.”

“Did you just say _Mum?_ British?”

Kalinda nodded.

“Where are you from, Kalinda?”

“My Mum is still alive, she lives with her sister not too far from Manchester, in the north-west of England. I grew up there.”

“Manchester, like _Manchester United_?”

Kalinda nodded. “Although everyone knows that anyone considered a local supports _City_.”

“You’ve lost me.”

Kalinda shrugged, taking a swig of her beer. “Sports.”

“So is your Mom in trouble?”

“She could be, I don’t know.”

“Tell me Kalinda. I don’t know what we can do to help but I’m sure there’s something we can do.”

“Alicia, if you want to help it means you need to know more about me, I just need you to listen right now, ok?” she snapped at me.

I nodded.

“My dad is from Pakistan. He was very traditional, even had a first wife and family back in Pakistan. After he moved to England he tried to marry off my older brothers into arranged marriages. _Islamic_ marriages. My eldest brother Tariq was first, he refused, ran away on his wedding day...turns out _he’s_ gay. And he left. Until then, we didn’t really know how bad things could get. Until we found out that my Dad would beat my Mum for staying in touch with Tariq. It took her a long time to leave.”

My heart broke. I tried to reach out for Kalinda’s hand but she pulled it back.

“Did you leave with her?”

Kalinda shook her head. “I was still a minor, and my Mum is white. I would’ve stood out too much if I’d lived with her, especially back then. So my younger brother and I stayed with dad, as brother after brother got married off or ran away. Saleem ran off to Art College in London, most of the others were married off...not always to the families my father would’ve liked since we were getting a bit of a reputation among Muslims in the north of England for being 'damaged goods'. When I was 20 my father started flying me to Dubai to meet suitors, to break new ground I suppose. I secretly started saving all the money I could to get a plane ticket out of there, I’d decided I was going to try to get to the US.”

“Why here?”

“It’s the land of opportunity, isn’t it? Besides, I had it in my head I wanted to be a dancer or an actress.”

“Hard to imagine that now.”

“Let’s just say my dreams were crushed,” she yawned. “Alicia I really need to get going, it's late.”

“You’ve barely scratched the surface here. One more drink? Or you can come back to mine, if that would make you feel better.”

She glared at me. “You’re not going to want me there, Alicia. Not one the morning comes around.”

“We don’t have to be in court tomorrow until ten. I’ll sleep better knowing you’re not home alone when you’re feeling like this.”

“Feeling like what, Alicia?”

“Vulnerable.”


	3. Kalinda - a Wednesday in 2010

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sleepover we always wanted Kalinda and Alicia to have, but with Kalinda sharing some secrets Alicia would rather not have known.

It was weird staying in Alicia’s place. As it was already well past midnight, the kids were long in bed; Alicia insisted it best I share the bedroom with her. Over months past I could only have dreamt of this, but with the impending doom of what I was going to tell her hanging over me, I didn’t even get excited to see her change into her nightwear, beautiful as it was. How somebody could still look so stunning while they _slept_ was, well, _wild_.

Her momma bear instinct kicking in, Alicia tossed me an oversized t-shirt to change into - oversized for her but definitely still too small for Peter so I doubt it was ever his. Taking a cotton pad I began to work at removing the infinite layers of eyeliner with her expensive cleanser, although as pricey as it was, I was there a good ten minutes stripping the kohl from my skin. I had no toothbrush so I helped myself to a small piece of peppermint floss.

I climbed onto the bed the opposite end to Alicia, intending to top and tail when we would ultimately go to sleep.

“So you weren't always an investigator,” Alicia probed, her feet tucked softly into each other by my pillow.

I shook my head. “Back home I worked in my Dad’s takeaway since leaving school, still doing my law diploma in the evening to keep the prestige-pushing part of him happy and keep my prospects up for if I didn’t get married off. A law career would’ve been the only thing that could’ve redeemed me if I wasn’t worth becoming a wife.”

“So what _did_ you do for work? In Dubai, to save.”

“Are you joking?” I laughed.

She frowned out of confusion.

“I was a _working girl_ , Alicia.”

“You were a _prostitute?_ ”

“It was the easiest way to make money. And it was the first time I was really able to earn. When the aunts chaperoning me thought I was asleep I’d go to the western hotels. Everyone there who’s buying is rich. I made enough money after three trips in four years, and even developed a taste for good liquor.”

Alicia hung onto my every word.

“And I had my first everything there. My first time ever was with an old Scandinavian guy who...well, you don't need to know _that_. And it wasn't long until my first experience...with a woman."

"You were hired by a woman?"

I shook my head. "With another prostitute, this German guy hired two of us to…well he just wanted to watch us. That was when I realised that I don’t feel the same way about men as I do about women. She was stunning. It’s not like I could really enjoy it though, I knew that even in those hotels there was always a chance we could end up dead. I tried to get her to run away with me, to save her money too. But she was American, which meant she would be able to come with me once I decided I wanted to get into the US. I cried the whole plane journey home to Manchester after that trip when we’d met, leaving her behind. And the next time I went back out there, the same hotels, I searched for her and couldn’t find her anywhere. _She_ was Leela. She was my first love. And I’m pretty certain she’s dead now.”

"You never saw her again?"

I shook my head. "I found her Passport, dumped out the back of the hotel. That's what got me here, to the US. “So I’m sure now you can imagine that there was only so much I could pretend if I got locked into a lifetime with one man. So on the third trip over I finally bought a ticket to the US. I wanted to go to LA, but could only afford the cheapest flight which was to O’Hare. I managed to escape my aunts in the airport to take the Chicago flight. I didn’t look too much like her but we looked a similar age and both of South Asian descent, so I passed as her. hey didn’t ask so many questions back in 1990. And here I was, Chicago, homeless, penniless, desperate.”

“For a long time just worked in restaurants and bars while I worked my way through a GED programme, since Leela had no qualifications and I didn’t have anything other than her passport to set life up here. I finally went to Community College and got my associates degree, and could probably have just carried on as I was for the foreseeable. But I wanted stability, which I couldn’t get living in squats with no social security number and sleeping with guys for money.

“I was picked up in a drugs raid and was assigned this Bar Association lawyer called _Will Gardner_ who was working some Pro Bono cases. He liked the way I think, worked out my deal and passed me to the SA’s office as an informant in exchange for not prosecuting me.

“The SA’s office? When?”

“2004.”

“When Peter was Deputy State’s Attorney?”

Kalinda nodded. “He helped me change my identity, and got me the job there.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I worked for him Alicia.”

“I know, he gave you the job at the SA’s office.”

Kalinda shook her head.“He wanted to sleep with me, that’s why I got the job.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“This is what Blake had on me. He knew. And he told Petra Moritz.”


End file.
